Tag: joy

I told someone yesterday that I was courageous. Well, wrote to them. wrote. But still. I am.

What does it mean to you? That you might be courageous too?

What do I mean when I say it about myself? I mean that I am still here. I am still looking around starry eyed… I am still having moments when I realize I am totally in love with my children. (also, the opposite, but still.)…I am currently willing to try a little ‘feeling’ with dating… (thats the most tepid shout of joy ever, but still… its there!!)

I run outside to see satellites in the sky. I stare out the window at the blue blue sky and just gaze.

I am choosing. I am laughing. I am striding.

I am .

oh man, I am.

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Today one of my jobs is paying me to do all the company holiday cards. they are red and green and lovely, but with lots of gold and seasonally Northern Hemisphere holiday animals, think otters, polar bears, orca, swan. they are really lovely, really. and i’m getting my groove on in penmanship. all i’m doing is addressing and signing, really, and its still so lovely. my kids haven’t been taught cursive writing in school and its a sadness for me, though they are learning signatures from their dad and I , they’ll never know the great satisfaction of a loop. One of the names I just had to write was Mazzella. Now, thats a name to bring fantastic satisfaction to a hand-writer. OOh, man, double z’s and double l’s?

i love the back and forth, the curve and return of an ‘c’, the curve and return… ah, metaphors, you never fail me.

sigh.

we have heat today, all the kids are in school, at least, at this moment. I’m finally able to look at some of the work I should have been doing during plumbing issues and pinkeye. there’s a healthy amount.

and in the background, i am trying to figure out larger meanings… i look chill but the number of health/stress connections is sad… and… the number of large ticket items that i’ve bumped into around my car and the house and such are pretty substantial. what does it mean? what do I THINK it means? Am I believing I need to sell this house? that THAT is the practical step forward? And then I look around and fall in love again… Am I grounding down to settle in for a winter with a house that is all fixed up and safe for me and my kids? AM i learning that money is just something I need to stop thinking about, because things are managed somehow? (i live in a fairly frugal way, most of the time, so thats my baseline) but with family and a single credit card and alimony and child support and a wee bit of job money, i have swung this season of giant expense, and christmas is not even here yet, but i have decided already that whatever i have at this point right now, is what will be. thats it. no more.

thats cool, thats right. the kids have more than enough. no one will be crying on christmas. and if they do, that is not a problem of mine.

and what about love? Am i finding that I am ready to begin looking for something more than sex? Don’t fucking tell anybody, but its a glimmer right now. just a fleck of light really.

I was just glancingly invited to my kids birthday party last weekend. i had asked, but gotten no response. my unbelievably crafty birthday boy begged me by phone to come, in front of his dad. his dad was essentially forced into a ‘if you love me, mom has to come’ situation. I was able to swoop into the place, see the set up, get the big hugs and the laughs and swoop out all with my emotions completely intact.

seriously, it was no big thing.

i can’t even believe it was me that typed that. So much has changed with time. SO much.

swoop. and loop.

arms raised to the magnificence.

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SO, currently sitting by the woodstove in my beautiful home. Envy me. Really. Spend your time wishing you had a woodstove, and a beautiful home. I can show you all sorts of pictures on instagram of the beauty in the nooks and crannys and the sparkle lights I love so much. I can. You should. You could.

and then.

when i am sitting by my woodstove, in the glow of flames, i am tending a mysteriously sick child. and i am tending her as she lies on the floor at my feet, because she is six and needs to be kept warm. and she needs to be kept warm here, at my feet, because the rest of the house is without heat.

thanks reality. thanks a whole bunch.

the plumber couldn’t find the part, so we’re on day two of no boiler and the boys went to school… albeit late because sleeping on the floor in the kitchen really sucked, so we needed more of it and we missed the bus.

the youngest went to my mom’s, where she had her own queensized bed and heat, and I realize i’ve somehow gotten my priorities out of whack.

mom kept the stove topped up all night so was a nightmare of a logistician this morning. she also spent her time in the night walking around checking on the space heaters, because those are death traps.

this is her own problem, this ‘vigilance’ thing. she is working on it. ( oh my god, i slipped into third personing without even being aware. holy mo.)

rargh. now the babe is home. we had reached the school parking lot when she started crying and moaning about her belly and i just do not have any juice left. and i refuse to do something i am going to regret. (which is weighted, i know)

so home we are, and she fell right to sleep, which probably means she’s legit sick. or just scared by the whole night away experience. i don’t know. the boys stayed here and we crashed together, and ache together now.

So i’m here, in my lovely reality. and honest to god, thats where the real beauty is.

finding it in the mess. finding beauty in the money fears… watching the light come through the plastic-covered windows, seeing the disco ball spin from a draft, realizing how little the littlest still is…

the world is fucking amazing. and my dirty dishes in the sink and the fucking chaos of my campkitchen right now? its the nirvana that i get. its what i get.

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i have these cards that i use for inspiration sometimes. there are two sets. one, i’ve had since high school, literally. a gift because i knew a girl who’s mom was a medium.

really. its just not all that common, is it? i really got to know that chrissy much later in life, but she was a friend of a friend several times over and i was cool enough to ‘hang’… 🙂

oh. chrissy.

so. because i knew her a little bit, i hung out in a few cool places and got to see these sweet little cards, called angel cards. ( i think that’s their real name but it might be that i made it up at some point. )

ANYHOW.

you flip a card and that’s your touchpoint for the day, the week, whatever. your challenge to your brain, your task to ponder ( i use tarot cards the same way, i think) …. and mine has said ‘play’ for the past three weeks. (because i have almost no routine at these things, whatsoever.)

and why? why would i be so resistant to PLAY? i mean, my soul is a preschool teacher!!?! COME ON. but i think i don’t want to pick another til i somehow incorporate it into my life in a more substantial way than playing ‘mastermind’ with my sick kid.

what about you? do you have some way to get play into your life? that delight that is in real play?

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this is the winter of my discontent, y’all. i include the y’all to forcibly add some sun to my bleak inner bog.

and its really pretty easy to interject sun, because none of it is that bad.

I’m alone too much. As much as I like it, the weekends are leaving me listless. I have to force myself out into the world and then I run back home, but I’m depressed about it. I don’t think thats good.

i’m happy pretty often. healthy, the kids are good, we’re in this blissful pre-teenager lull of everyone-is-pretty-content on the homefront period… and i’m digging it.

i know its fleeting and I’m watching it like the first snow. . .

I go to Salvation Army and sit down in the sofas… because it cracks me up. Its me and the other old ladies…i take some photos, i send them around to friends to make them laugh. this is me begging for a foot rub… mah foots, mah foots…

but really, theres something shifting here… something tidal going on… salty snow, maybe. that slurry at the shore during the winter when the water is spitting foam on the sand…

i’m laughing more. nothing is working. i’m scared about money. i’m soldiering on trying to get editing jobs, which is sometimes working. things just really aren’t ‘quite’ panning out the way they would in a romance. but we all know those things are for absolute shit. everything is breaking.

i’m dressing in the weirdest clothing, as i try to suit my weight gain and my love of my curves… the body that i am ‘used to’ dressing isn’t this one, and i’ve never had so much to contend with… (!) so … i’m trying things on… wearing a lot of draping fabrics, swishing skirts and so much softness. I’m turning into some sort of mobile stuffed animal, i think.

which might attract the wrong crowd maybe… blech.

*i did meet one guy online who liked to wear adult diapers. for fun. wanted to call me mommy. i’m not even making that up.

on the other hand, i’ve met a lot of men who respected the hell out of the job i do as a mom. and found it sexy. and I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW MUCH THAT MEANS.

to have the perception of others AND self be that one is a nag, an abandoned housewife in apron with straggly unkempt hair and dirty children … and to have that SHIFT to powerful, life-affirming, grounded, nourishing, excellent fuckability… all-encompassingly womanly?!

holy mother of god.

i would recommend divorce for all of us, if i could guarantee that you’d get that, just for a minute…. (otherwise, not at all. i don’t recommend it at all).

on the note of ‘non-recommendation’, i am going to check out. i just had a kid come home sick with vague complaints… since when do school nurses buy into vague complaints? sheesh. and when she called, she used my maiden name, which thrilled me.